by Alexie Aaron
“Uptight and three minutes away from losing it. I think we would be wise to cut her free, send her back to the B&B.”
“I agree.” Burt looked around and saw Ted not doing anything but examining his zipper. “Ted, let Mike know it’s time to cut bait.”
“Oooh, code. I likes it,” Ted sang. He jumped out of the van and headed into the house.
“Did you get anything from the house?” Burt asked her.
“Inside, not much, but it’s early. Outside there seems to be a feeling of being watched.”
“I hear ya.”
“You get anything on the parabolic dish?” Beth said as she squeezed by Burt to set up her control station.
“Well, by the time I had the thing put together, all Ted and I got was a few clops. Maybe tomorrow. I have it on good authority that it happens around four in the afternoon,” he said as he nodded to an eavesdropping Ted.
“I’ll be ready,” Ted said as he climbed back into the van. He thought a minute. “Do you think we should position a camera up there? Which one? Too early for the infrared... Besides it’s probably a residual and...”
“No heat,” Burt filled in. “Still, hit it with everything we have, who knows?”
Ted nodded his head. Amber looked puzzled.
“Supposedly there’s a rider on the hillside,” Burt explained.
“Who’s the source?” she asked. “No, don’t tell me, our elusive little sensitive, Mia.”
He didn’t have to answer; she already knew.
“Now, that’s one person I’d like to meet. What’s she like?” Beth probed.
“Reserved, evasive and yet honest,” Burt said, scratching his head. “If you ask her something, she’ll answer you. She just won’t volunteer anything.”
“Well, if we meet up, I’ll have a list of questions for Miss Mia Cooper.” Beth smiled and took the last sandwich.
“You do that, but don’t expect me to come running when she tears you a new one,” he warned.
“Maybe you should have added dangerous to the list then, Burt.”
“Who’s this Minnie Cooper?” Ted asked.
“Mia Cooper to you...”
“She’s the local ghost seer,” Amber butted in. “I sense our Burt is protecting her.”
“Is she hot?” Ted leaned in.
“Yes, she’s hot... hot tempered. You stay away from her.” Burt put a hand on Ted’s shoulder and whispered in his ear, “She’s so hot that you would burn up on reentry.”
“Burt, you know I love it when you talk space innuendo,” Ted said blushing.
~
Murphy didn’t really understand what was going on, but he was still interested. Mia told him to stay away, but he decided it was in his best interest not to listen to her. If she had her way, he would be pulling weeds at the pearly gates. He listened to his mother in his first life, and it caused him nothing but pain and embarrassment. In his afterlife he didn’t see that he should put another woman in charge of ordering him around. He did pine a bit for the petite woman with the moss green eyes though. Hell, he’d have her if it were possible, but since it wasn’t, he would just have to be content with chopping wood. He picked up his axe and, crack, let it fall.
~
“Did you hear that?” Amber asked Ted who was testing the living room’s temp and electromagnetic fields.
“Yep, you should hear it on the dish,” he explained. “Sounds like someone chopping wood.” He jotted down his findings before he moved on into the kitchen.
“I really hope we get a picture of the ghost lady on my watch,” Amber said wistfully. She wasn’t really into paranormal investigation so much as she was eager to ride this train into the public eye, maybe get on another reality show or, even better, a stint on CSI Miami.
The kitchen showed an elevated EMF, but the temp was constant. Could be the wiring was not exactly up to code. Ted started to open up cabinets and closets until he was rewarded with the fuse box. He scanned the box, and it seemed fine. He made note of the earlier abnormality and moved on through to the dining room. Beth was sitting at the table looking through her notes and nodded at Ted as he passed by.
Before her was the title search she did on April’s house. The further back she read, the more puzzled she became. April bought this house and a few acres from Restoration Realty which had acquired it and thirty acres from a county tax sale. The house sat unoccupied for thirty years. Before that, the owners never stayed long. Ten owners in ten years wasn’t unusual for the city, but back here it was an indication that something was wrong with the house as of forty years ago. She would have to ask Rose if she had any information beyond forty years. If not, it would mean a trip to the local historical society.
“But first we will see how tonight goes,” she said aloud, looking around the smartly appointed room. The Ethan Allen dining set was trimmed with Martha Stewart. The matching sideboard glistened with Crate and Barrel glassware. The only affront to taste was the personal computer tucked in the front of the room facing the foyer and living room beyond. Although it sat on a nice wooden desk that matched the wood of the table, it still distracted the eye with its functionality.
“Everybody, meeting in the van in five minutes. Bring your coat. It’s cold out there,” Mike shouted into the house from the front door.
Beth gathered her notes and heard Ted’s feet pound down the stairs. He stopped and waited for her in the foyer. The two left together, keeping to their number one rule - no one investigates alone.
The house was still. The only sound was from the devices PEEPs left on. April’s computer was off, but her monitor clicked on. A faint blue light emanated from the screen before it clicked off again. From the kitchen came the sound of a door opening, a faint groan against old hinges.
Chapter Thirteen
Burt handled the camera as Mike and Amber took a tour of the house. They were going through some rehearsed, inane chatter more geared for the reality audience than paranormal aficionados. He had told them before that it sounded phony, but here they were again with the same spiel.
“Tell me again, when did you first know you were special?” Mike asked, turning to the camera.
“I’m glad you asked me that,” Amber said as she eased into the shot. “I was in grade school when my third grade class went to visit a local farm to pick out our Halloween pumpkins and go on a hay ride. I was waiting with my group for our turn in the barn when I became dizzy and felt sick. It was so bad that my teacher had to call my mother to take me home. I later found out that in that very barn two outlaws had been shot to death by the law back in 1890.”
“So you saw them?”
“No, but I felt their presence. Not a nice feeling,” Amber explained. “Since that day, I have heard and felt things that were far from normal. They were paranormal.”
“Oh, great, more cheese,” Burt thought. He carefully scanned the living room. He moved the camera very slowly, hoping something would happen.
Amber put her hand to her face. “Mike, I’m sensing something...”
“What?”
“Loneliness and despair.” She tapped her right temple. “Something, no, someone left behind.”
Mike took out his digital tape recorder and asked, “Who are you? Do you need help?”
Burt never liked asking if an entity needed help. How the hell were they supposed to help something they couldn’t see nor hear until they played back the tape which was sometimes days later? It was like asking an old lady if you could help her cross the street from four miles away.
“I feel a presence, a woman. I can smell her perfume,” Amber claimed.
Burt sniffed the air. All he could smell was Mike who really should try using deodorant instead of that natural crystal stuff which didn’t work.
“We have a device here for you to talk into. We can’t hear you otherwise.” Mike put the recorder on the nearest table.
Burt clenched his jaw. Didn’t they just talk about not calling the recorder a “devic
e” yesterday? How would a nineteenth century person know what a “device” was? Ted suggested they say “box.” The group agreed with a four to one vote. Mike seemed to think that it was only his vote that counted.
“Amber, do you still feel a presence?” Mike asked.
“No, I think she has left the room,” she claimed.
At that moment, the group heard footsteps above them.
“Did you hear that?” Mike said as he led the group upstairs.
Burt tried to focus the camera at the top of the stairs, but the autofocus kept fighting him. Mike pounded up the stairs, forgetting his recorder on the end table. Amber hung back a few moments as if to steady herself before she leisurely climbed the stairs. Burt had to wait until the queen bee made the landing before catching up with the group.
Landing on the top step, Burt felt an icy hand on his arm. He chose not to flinch, but the cold was biting into his skin.
“Guys, something touched my arm,” he said as he tried to handle the camera one armed.
“No way!” Mike said, running back from the other end of the hall. He put his hand tentatively on Burt’s. “What the hell? It’s so cold, it feels like it’s frozen.” Mike rubbed his hand up and down Burt’s arm, looking for a variance in temperature. “It’s just in this patch. Seems to be warming up. Look, dude!” He pointed.
Burt set the camera on his shoulder and moved into the path of Amber’s flashlight. There were red streaks encircling his arm as if someone had grabbed it hard enough to leave marks. “Take the camera,” he instructed Mike.
Mike took the camera and shot some film of Burt’s arm. It took a while, but the vivid red streaks faded to something resembling sunburn.
“How do you feel?” Mike asked as he handed the camera back to Burt.
Burt looked at the asshole through the lens. “I’m fine. It just hurts like a rope burn.” He panned the camera. “Where’s Amber?”
Mike spun around. The landing and the hall were empty. “Amber, where are you?” he called out. Not getting an answer, they went on a room to room search.
They found her in the master suite bathroom vomiting in the toilet. Burt got her hurl on camera before she kicked the door shut.
Mike indicated for Burt to shut it off. He didn’t turn it off, but he did put it down and pointed it away from the bathroom.
“Holy crap, that was great,” Mike said in awe. “I wish it was me. This is pretty cool, especially since it’s our first night.”
Amber vomited again. Mike mimicked her bent over the toilet and said, “Some psychic. More like psy-sick.” He laughed at his own joke.
Burt tapped on the door. “Amber, can I get you anything?”
He was answered with the door opening a crack. “Is that damn camera off?”
He held his both hands out to show he didn’t have a camera in them.
“I saw your arm and was surprised because I felt nothing before it, no warning. Then I saw it turn red, and a wave of electricity went through me,” Amber explained. “I barely made it here before I puked.” Amber walked out of the john. “I’m going back to the van to sit down.”
Mike stood aside and let her go. Burt had barely picked up the camera to follow when they heard her scream. They ran out into the hall and saw Amber cringing against the wall facing the staircase, pointing downward.
Mike ran ahead of Burt and down a few stairs before he saw what Amber saw. A woman stood with her back to them, trying to open the front door. Burt zoomed in on the translucent apparition. Both her hands were on the doorknob, trying to tug it open. The door didn’t budge. The knob remained still. The woman turned, and as she looked up, she frowned and disappeared.
Burt pulled out his walkie-talkie. “Ted,” he said into the mic.
“Ted here.”
“Check the front door.”
“Front door’s clear.”
“Leave the van and check the front door,” he instructed.
“Okay, I’m sending Beth.”
“Burt,” Beth’s voice came over the speaker.
“Go ahead.”
“The front porch is clear. Do you want me to open the door?”
“Give it a try.”
They heard a yelp and a hiss. “Door knob appears to be frozen. It hurt like a son of a bitch. Sorry, you’ll have to work it from your end.”
“Go back to the van and get Ted.”
The door burst open as Ted put some of his weight into it. He had the intelligence to put gloves on. “You guys okay?” he asked, looking up from the doorway.
“Amber needs some help.”
Ted bounded up the stairs, followed by Beth who was nursing her right hand.
“Hey, Amber. Come to Ted,” he said in a comforting voice. “We’ll go downstairs one step at a time.”
Ted took one of her arms and Mike the other. Beth stood aside and let them pass.
“What happened?”
Burt filled her in, and the two of them compared battle wounds. “Did we get it on tape?” she asked excitedly.
“Yes, we did.”
“That’s so great. Poor Amber, she didn’t seem to have had a good time.”
“She puked up her guts in April’s bathroom after she saw my arm. Good thing or we would have been here all night cleaning the stairwell.”
Beth turned to go back down the stairs. Burt hefted the camera back onto his shoulder and followed her. When they hit the foyer, he set the camera down and went looking for Mike’s digital recorder.
Beth turned on the lights and examined her hand more closely. It had blisters forming where it had come in contact with the knob. “But the knob was cold,” she mused out loud.
“Lookie here,” Burt said, walking over to her. He held out the recorder, and the battery was dead. “Hope it still has something on it.”
“That Mike’s?” she asked.
“Yep.”
“It was fully charged by yours truly before we got here,” she explained.
“I’m going to check out the other equipment. Fortunately we were able to plug into the house’s power...”
He was interrupted by the sound of a door opening in the kitchen. “Location check,” he whispered into the walkie-talkie.
“Ted, Amber in van.”
“Mike, at SUV.”
“Beth and Burt in house. Going to investigate door opening in kitchen, over,” Burt whispered. He picked up the camera and motioned Beth to take the lead.
She hesitated only a moment before she started to walk into the kitchen.
Through the lens, Burt didn’t see any open doors.
“Maybe it was a door closing,” Beth wondered. She carefully tested the back door knob with a fingertip before twisting the knob and opening it. The door swung in smoothly without a sound other than the latch clicking. She closed it, and still no sound. Beth moved on and opened each closet and adjoining door, no luck. “Is there a cellar?”
“I don’t remember.” Burt put the camera on the counter and picked up the walkie. “Mike, do you remember April telling us about a cellar?”
“That’s a negative, I don’t.”
“Ted?”
“Looking at the blueprints from Restoration Realty now. No basement listed.”
“Come on, this is a house built in the 1800s; I’m sure it has a cellar.”
“Maybe it had a cellar,” Ted offered.
“Team, it’s getting late. Let’s look into the cellar situation tomorrow. Beth, see if Rose knows anything.”
“If not, she should be able to get you in touch with someone that does know,” Mike instructed. “I’m going to take Amber to the B&B. You guys lock up and meet us there.”
Burt shut the walkie off. “This is bullshit! We have an active haunt going on. This may not happen again, and he wants to call it a night.”
“Burt.” Ted ducked his head in the door. “Your walkie’s off.”
“I know, because I turned the fucking thing off!”
“I want to know if we
can leave the cameras up. We have the three o’clock window to cover...”
Burt smiled. “Let’s check each one before we leave, and take your time. Oh, and do it in teams. No one goes alone in this house.”
Ted gave him a mini salute. “Gotcha.”
“When we’re done, I’m going to take Beth to have her blisters looked at.”
Beth held up her hand.
“You did that on the doorknob?” Ted asked. “Cool, I’m sorry but...”
She shook her head. “I know. Come on, Burt, let’s get our wounds documented.”
They checked each battery, replacing any spent ones before leaving the house. Beth handed Burt the keys to her car as Mike had taken the SUV.
A shadow disengaged itself from the corner of the barn and headed over to them. Burt, temporarily blinded by the car’s interior lights, struggled to make out the form.
“How did it go?” Mia’s voice floated on the night air. “I thought I’d check to make sure the lights on the markers held up. Good thing too, some jack-off moved one of the markers.”
“Mia Cooper, this is Beth, our researcher. She’s got some burns she needs tending.”
Mia walked over and examined Beth’s hand. “I’m not going to ask how you got them.” She turned the hand over and gently released it. “At this time of night, I think the hospital over in Green Ridge is the place. You want me to drive you or would you like to follow me?”
“That’s generous of you, and I’m not going to be stupid and decline.” He looked over at Beth. “Okay with you?”
She nodded and got out of the car. Burt shut the doors and locked up. “Where’s your truck?”
“Follow me. Watch your step, there are cables all over the place,” Mia cautioned.
They followed her to the side of the barn. Burt helped Beth in before calling Ted to let him know they would be leaving Beth’s car there.
They were almost out of the drive when Burt remembered the missing marker. “Mia, what marker?”
“The first right turn was on the left side. If you headed in that direction, you would find yourself deep in the hollow.”
“Shit, Mike and Amber...”
